Yesterday was a routine Sunday for me: Get up, go to Tai Chi, come back, clean up the apartment, send Tim a text message to find out where and when we are going to eat lunch. The only difference on this morning was that I didn’t go for a walk. In general, I take off about 1 Sunday every 3 or 4 weeks to let my legs get a bit of needed rest.

However, on this day, the muse was calling and I had that itch. I ‘needed’ to go out and take photographs and it would not be denied. I’ve been itching to get the medium format camera out and shoot photos of the roller coasters at Carowinds.

As Tim and I sat down to lunch, I told him: Tim, today, I want to do something different. I am going to hang out with you for a couple of hours, then around 3 or so, I’m heading over to Carowinds to photograph the roller coaster. He said that sounded like fun and asked if he could join. Done deal. We left and went at 3:00.
Tim used to do photography quite a bit back in the film days and, even though he used a Canon, I offered him the use of my D300. As a side note: Canon users aren’t bad people, they just need to be educated, that’s all. 😉

Tim had never used a digital SLR before, but, as they say, he took to it like a duck takes to water. To make things simple, we put it in “P”rogram mode, I showed him how to focus it, move the focusing reticle, and how to take the picture, mounted the Tamron 18-270mm, and turned him loose! He very much enjoyed the experience and was quite taken with the VR system on the lens. I never think about it, but he’s never experienced it.

We arrived, parked across the street, walked over a small hill and into the parking lot of Carowinds. When I walked towards the roller coaster, I was impressed with its size, to be sure, but what was even more impressive and what kept attracting me as I drove past it and viewed it from a distance several miles away, is all of the sensuous, sweeping curves. Few straight lines. Aesthetically pleasing in form and color. As I stood underneath the curves, I looked up and the color contrast between the blue Carolina sky and the vivid red track of the coaster was impressive to say the least.

For a moment, I felt a bit of disappointment because I had black & white film loaded and Tim was happily snapping away with the D300. However, that was certainly extremely short lived as I hoisted the Mamiya 645e to my eye and fell into the curves of the coaster. After that, all thoughts of color fell away as I swung, left, right, upside down, remembering my experience in riding this coaster, The Intimidator, now reliving it from the less nauseating side of the coaster. LOL
After exposing 4 rolls, one of which I have processed, three remain, I thought of Gary Windogrand and how he was out all the time. Further, I thought of how much he loved the process. Loved it so much that he left behind some 25,000 rolls of undeveloped film. It would seem, or so I think, that he was not so interested in the end result, or destination, as he was smitten with the process of getting out and enjoying life, camera in hand. He was taken with taking the photographs.

A final note for Chris K, as he is usually interested: Kodak Plus-X (expired 2007): Rodinal 1:50

Hello! You have hit upon the proper way to enjoy a roller coaster. At lease, in my humble opinion. There was a time when I would have felt differently; but, oh so long ago. Now, terra firma and a camera in hand is the way to go. All those curves are hypnotic and the tones are beautiful. I’m glad the muse wouldn’t leave you alone.